About Me

I am a lifelong student of military history with particular interest in the Battle of Antietam. I work for the federal government in Washington DC and have two teenagers who I love very much. I currently volunteer at the battlefield and devote much time to the study of this battle and the Maryland Campaign. I enjoy collecting notable contemporary quotations by and about the men of Antietam. These words often add a degree of color and character not found elsewhere in their stories. A feature of this blog is the presentation of some of these quotes. My perspective comes from a 28 year career in the U.S. Army. Travels took me to World War II battlefields in Europe and the Pacific where American valor ended the tyranny of Nazism and Empire. But our country faced its own greatest challenge 80 years earlier during the Civil War. And it was the critical late summer of 1862, when Robert E. Lee launched the Maryland Campaign that fortune could have gone either way. It is an incredible story of drama, carnage, bravery, and missed opportunities that culminated around the fields and woodlots of peaceful Sharpsburg MD. So join me as I make this journey South from the North Woods.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Was McClellan’s Cavalry Deployment at Antietam Doctrinally Sound?

-->

Middle Bridge 3PM

This year, Savas Beatie published Volume II of Ezra Carmen’s
monumental manuscript under the outstanding editorial pen of Tom Clemens.Tom’s work combines the manuscript of
Carmen with the Copes maps for the best primary source account of this decisive
battle. The most exceptional aspect of this book is Tom’s brilliant footnotes
and references.He goes beyond
merely citing a reference and includes a full degree of careful analysis.Here is an example.

Much is made (generally negative) of McClellan’s
concentration of his cavalry, behind the center of his line.

In Landscape Turned
Red, Stephen Sears has this to say:

Shortly before noon, McClellan had
ventured to push several batteries across the Middle Bridge, supported by
Pleasonton’s cavalry and a force of regulars from George Syke’s Fifth
Corps.He was nervous about the
move-it was taken against the advice of Porter and Sykes-and he cautioned
Pleasonton not to risk the batteries unduly. As an afterthought, he asked, “Can
you do any good by a cavalry charge?” Pleasonton wisely ignored the suggestion.[1]

There is also a quotation in
Carmen’s manuscript that criticizes the concentration of the cavalry in the
center:

“Another, a gallant young cavalry
officer later in the war, says: ‘It is one of the surprising features of this surprising
battle that the Federal cavalry, instead of being posted, according to the
practice of the centuries, on the flanks of the infantry, was used throughout
the day in support of its horse batteries, in rear of he Federal center, and in
a position from which it could have been impossible for it to have been uses ad
cavalry, or even to have emerged mounted.’”[2]

In Tom Clemen’s footnote to this
quotation, we learn that the “gallant young cavalry officer” is George B.
Davis.But Tom goes beyond
identifying the author of this quote to take on the issue of the doctrinal
soundness of Pleasonton’s cavalry position.Here is the complete cite:

George B. Davis, The Antietam Campaign, in Campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and
Pennsylvania 1862-1863, vol. 3, Papers of the Military Historical Association
of Massachusetts (Boston, MA: Griffith-Stillings Press, 1903), p. 55. Davis
had worked on publishing the Official Records and was the chair of the Antietam
Battlefield Board, Susan Trail, Remembering
Antietam, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Antietam National Battlefield
Library. Davis’ opinion though worthy of respect, may be challenged by the
strategic manual used as a textbook at
the U.S. Military Academy in the antebellum era. Baron De Jomini, Summary on the Art of War, or a New
Analytical Compend of the Principal Combinations of Strategy, Grand
Strategyand Military Policy
(New York, NY: G.P. Putnam & Co., 1854, pp 305-309, discussed cavalry
placement and use in various situations, including
a charge upon broken infantry lines with artillery support making success
possible, and cited examples to demonstrate it. McClellan’s placement was
consistent with Jomini’s principals.” (My bold)[3]

Tom makes a very important point
here. Jomini was studied at West Point and his book states that this is a
legitimate use of cavalry.McClellan’s
employment was just as doctrinally sound in the constructs of the time as Lee’s
was. Lee follows the more generally known employment of cavalry placing
Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade and Pelham’s artillery are on the left flank, Thomas
Munford’s brigade on the right, and Wade Hamptons brigade in reserve in the
center. But as Jomini makes plain, that is by no means the only possible course
of action.Sadly, many don’t reach
this point.

The conventional interpreters
ignore
or are unaware of this fact.Sears
says that Pleasonton “wisely ignored” McClellan’s suggestion.George Davis sets in stone the idea
that cavalry is only employed on the flanks on the battlefield “according to
the practice of the centuries”.

Some will argue that his
failure to place the cavalry on the flanks prevented him from detecting the
advance of A.P. Hill’s division.The reality is that the Union signal station on Red Hill had the Federal
left flank of the battlefield under constant observation and detected the
advance of Hill’s division.Some
will proclaim McClellan’s failure to place cavalry on the flanks as an
oversight or a mistake.McClellan is acknowledged, even by his most virulent detractors to be to
careful and methodical planner to have overlooked the flanks.His move is a conscious decision to
concentrate in the center.

I would go so far to venture this
possibility.McClellan has poised
his cavalry for an offensive
move.The Middle Bridge corridor
and Boonsboro Pike is the shortest and fastest route to the Potomac River.It is a risky venture and one that goes
against the grain of the typical McClellan portrayal as a conservative
commander.Consider that this is
the first time that McClellan has concentrated his cavalry into one combat
command.It is still a relatively
weak vessel compared to the mighty legions of JEB Stuart’s cavalry
division.Alfred Pleasonton, a
decidedly mixed bag in terms of competence, commands the division.But the move is in the right
direction.Not only is the cavalry
division concentrated but it has also advanced across the Antietam and is poised
further offensive action.The use
or potential use of cavalry as an offensive weapon is a first in the annals of
the Army of the Potomac.My point
today is only to assert the legitimacy and doctrinal soundness of the
employment.McClellan’s actual use
of the cavalry later that afternoon is another matter that can be discussed at
another time.

For those who would say that the
placement of mobile forces in the center for a decisive attack there is
doctrinally unwise and never works need only ask the French Army in 1940.That was their assumption until
Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps crossed the Meuse at Sedan and broke the French
center.

So lets take off the table the
idea that McClellan’s concept for deploying the cavalry was NOT doctrinally
sound.